Italian Chicken and Vegetable Soup

Chicken balls do sound a bit horrible but these lovely little Parmesan and garlic dumplings are slowly simmered in a flavoursome broth and taste delicious. Packed with vitamins and fibre, this dinner also rates well on the GL index (got to get into that holiday swim suit next week!).

Serves 4
1 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 large tomato, finely chopped
1 litre water
1 Kallo organic chicken stock cube
1 celery stalk finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
handful of runner beans, thinly sliced
200g bag young spinach leaves
for the balls
1 garlic clove, quartered
few sprigs parsely
2 tbsp grated Parmesan
250g cubed chicken

1 Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the onion for 5 minutes. Add the tomato and cook for a couple of minutes until softened. Add the water, stock cube, celery and carrot and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes.

2 Place the garlic parsley and Parmesan in a small food processor and whizz until finely chopped. Tip into a bowl. Add the chicken to the food processor and whizz until finely minced. Add to the bowl along with a little salt and plenty of black pepper.

3 Shape the chicken into cherry-sized balls dropping each one into the pan as they’re made. Add theb sliced beans to the pan. Cover and cook gently for 20 minutes.

4 Stir in the spinach and cook for a few moments until wilted. Ladle into bowls and serve without any crusty, buttered bread.